Odysseusprogramme

The Odysseusprogramme was launched by the Flemish government to attract top researchers at foreign universities to come (back) and conduct research in Flanders. They can be internationally recognised full professors (Type I) or researchers with international prominence potential (Type II). 

The principal aim is to compete in the European Research Area and to expand the Flemish knowledge economy by creating a favourable research climate.

The programme encourages researchers, in all scientific disciplines, who established their career (mainly) abroad, to pursue an independent research careerat a Flemish university. Award holders are offered Odysseus financing for 5 years, allowing them to develop a research group. In addition the Odysseus Type I supervisors receive a ZAP or ZAPBOF appointment and the Odysseus Type II supervisors are offered a full-time tenure track position at the Flemish university.

Odysseus researchers and research projects with University of Antwerp as host institution:

Type I

  • Oscar Gelderblom

    Title: “The Social History of Finance”
    Local copromoter: Peter Stabel, Centre for Urban History (2021)

  • Pascal Gielen
    Title: “Sustainable creativity in the post-fordist city.”
    Local copromotor: Henk De Smaele, ARIA, Antwerp Research Institute of the Arts (2016)
  • Annelies Van Rie
    Title: “Development of a Centre for Whole Genome Sequencing studies of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis.”  
    Local copromotor: Herman Goossens, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (2016)
  • Stuart Maudsley
    Title: "Post-genomic profiling and therapeutic targeting of specific and generic neurodegenerative mechanisms."
    Local copromoter: Christine Van Broeckhoven, Faculty of Pharmaceutical, Biomedical and Veterinary Sciences (2012)
  • Arjen van Witteloostuijn
    Title: "Demographic diversity and the evolution of social entities. The ecological and institutional study of behaviour and performance of teams, organizations, industries, networks and communities."
    Local copromoter: Christophe Boone, Faculty of Applied Economics (2007)

Type II

  • Hoijtink Marijn
    Title: "Platform Wars: Technology, Politics and Law on the Automated Battlefield."
    Local copromotor: Tom Sauer, Faculty of Social Sciences (2022)
  • Barros Ignacio
    Title: "New birational invariants and the geometry of moduli spaces."
    Local copromtor: Karim Becher, Faculty of Science (2022)
  • Shoubhik Das
    Title: "CO2 to Enantiopure Carboxylic Acids: Late Stage C-H bondFunctionalization Using Earth-Abundant-Metal based CooperativePhotoredox Catalysis"
    Local copromotor: Bert Maes, Faculty of Science (2021)
  • Victor Gilsing 
    Title: "The Role of a Firm´s Senior Leadership in the Creation of Technological Breakthroughs."
    Local copromotor: Christophe Boone, Faculty of Applied Sciences (2015)
  • Karim Becher
    Title: "Explicit Methods in Quadratic Form Theory."
    Local copromotor: Lieven Le Bruyn, Faculty of Science (2014)
  • Bence Nanay
    Title: "Perception, Action and What's in between."
    Local copromotor: Erik Myin, Faculty of Arts (2011)
  • Michiel Wouters
    Title: "Strong light-matter coupling in semiconductor nanostructures and ultracold atomic gases."
    Local copromotor: Jacques Tempère, Faculty of Science (2011)    
  • Jan Beyers
    Title: "The politics of interest representation and agenda-setting in Multi-level political systems."
    Local copromoter: Stefaan Walgrave, Faculty of Political and Social Sciences (2008)
  • Nick Van Remortel
    Title: "Exploration of the light Higgs Boson sector at the LHC."
    Local copromotor: Eddi De Wolf, Faculty of Science (2008)
  • Misko Vyacheslav 
    Title: "Nonlinear dynamics in nanosystems: flux quanta in nanostructured superconductors, colloids, nanoclusters."
    Local copromoter: François Peeters, Faculty of Science (2008)
  • George Pavlakos
    Title: "The impact of globalisation on law."
    Local copromoter: Johan Meeusen, Faculty of Law (2007)